Listen to These Essential Strategies for High-Performance with Danya Douglas-Hunt

Christine Li  0:00  
You're listening to the Make Time for Success podcast and this is episode 63. I think it's safe to say that we all have some invisible dragons that we are dealing with on the regular by invisible dragons. I mean things like self sabotage, staying a little too much inside our comfort zone. And fearing that we're just not cut out for the bigger plans that we're cooking up inside of our heads. Our guest today, Coach Danya Douglas-Hunt is going to share with us her expertise in slaying these types of invisible dragons, the ones that threatened to hold us back. She is a former Olympic athletic therapist and strength and conditioning coach, turned multi passionate entrepreneur, who now coaches high performing entrepreneurs to their next level of income, impact and inner growth. She is a certified Neuro Linguistic Programming practitioner, a life and success coach, a time techniques practitioner, a clinical hypnotherapist and an emotion Freedom Techniques facilitator, outside of her one on one and small group coaching. She is trained by and coaches on James Wedmore his team and does performance coaching for pure life organics. She shares so many different pieces of wisdom and advice. In this episode, we had a fantastic conversation, I think you're going to learn a lot about how to work with your intuition and your biggest plans. Let's go listen to this episode now.

Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn a powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. 

Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. Hi, friends. Welcome back. Today I am sitting with Coach Danya Douglas-Hunt and she and I are going to have a lovely conversation today we're already prepped and ready to go. We are new to each other. As of about a few weeks, we met at a conference and she was one of the coaches. And I just loved her energy. I loved her input. And I just felt she needs to be on this show. So welcome Coach Danya.

Danya Douglas-Hunt  2:47  
Thank you. Likewise, it was so great connecting with you and getting to know more about what you do as well. So thank you for having me part of the show.

Christine Li  2:55  
Thank you, I'm so glad that you're here. Alright, so I always start off these episodes with a little bit of biographical background of the guest, could you take us through a little bit of the highlights of your life and how you got to be coached? And yeah,

Danya Douglas-Hunt  3:14  
I would love to you give me a sign because I can I can talk a lot. So Okay, cut me off. But yeah, so I am in Canada, and I grew up and I went to school for athletic therapy. And I landed at the time, which was my dream job working with Olympic athletes, and was really fortunate to work with the best in the world and travel the world and really get immersed into that high performance culture at a really early point in my career. And then throughout that career, I recognize that there's a need or desire for more autonomy in my life, and also wanting to help even more people. And so I started exploring what online was. And at the time, I didn't really have a good model of it. Like I I saw it as kind of like people who were sketchy. I had no idea none. And so I started dabbling and learning but online, and was like, Oh, actually, like a lot of what I teach my athletes, I can take and teach way more people and they can learn in the comfort of their home. So I started to dabble in that. And I started to take business courses and 10 conferences. And then I signed up for one program, which you're very aware of business by design with James and I started witnessing the coaching that was going on. And so there was curiosities with myself, when I was working with clients and athletes of giving them something and then them not following through. And I was like, what is that? Like? Here's your plan, here's your strategy, rehab, whatever it is like Why are you falling through? So that was already kind of seating within me. And then I saw coaching happening in James's program. And I was like, What is this? How are you shifting people state? How are you shifting perception? Like I really got curious about mindset, which is interesting because in Olympic athletes mindset is everything like it's all of this is connected But my path to the mindset coaching was witnessing it through business experience, and then applying to be one of James's coaches and then really being coached through James, I recognize that I actually didn't want to do Olympic sport anymore. And it scared the crap out of me because my whole identity was built up and done, like schooling education time, everything was into Olympic sport. And I was like, who am I to be now pivoting? Like what even is mindset or coaching like I don't even didn't even know is the thing that existed. So through coaching, James helped me understand why certain things my business weren't taking off, like I knew they could, and I saw so many for the people. And it was because I didn't realize it. But subconsciously, I was dealing with like, a fear or a misalignment of actually what I really wanted to do, which was really focused on coaching. But I was really scared of what people thought of me or if I pivoted or like who am I to do this. So in short, that's kind of how I got into coaching. It started in high performance, and so much of it is mind and body connection. It's never separate. You're always working with the mind in the body and managing the mind around stress and pressure. James actually helped coach me into realizing, I really want to just focus just on coaching. And I love learning about coaching and psychology and subconscious mind. And he helped coach me through my own stuff to open up kind of this. You're doing what you're really good at, but not actually what you want to do anymore. So I think we mentioned in earlier chat to the big leap, I think yes. Have you heard of it? Yeah. Yes. So I had gone through this, like, massive year of just like, inner turmoil of like, who am I? What am I doing? How is this even possible? But that book, I feel like really helps conceptualize what I just had experience of like, I am really good. Like, you can't work with athletes unless you're good at what do you do? They interest you? Like all these things. That was my zone of excellence as what's defined in the book, but my zone of genius and what I really love and energizes me and just like a talk for all day on is coaching the high performing entrepreneur. And the funny thing is, Hi Prem entrepreneur is exact same as high performing athlete in terms of mindset, qualities, characteristics, that the same thing. So it's actually a really natural transition for me. But yeah, I don't know if we want to speak to that. But the journey of like, changing my mind, or pivoting or shifting my identity to stepping into this new area was hard, but so rewarding, and I'm so happy I did it.

Christine Li  7:27  
Well, I can say you're a fantastic coach, I've only been with you for a few minutes in that coaching zone. But you're amazing and spot on with your insights and advice. And I feel at this moment, I really do need to give a shout out and great gratitude to James Wedmore. Who is the coach that we are both referring to and who is our mentor and guide and someone who definitely is one to help people get out of their limiting belief zone. So thank you, James. Now, thank you for describing your journey. I'm so glad you've landed in the place that you feel is well aligned with you. You can I hop back to the early piece with the Olympic athletes and you just starting your career in that top of the mountains zone. What about you might have been a good fit for the high performance zone.

Danya Douglas-Hunt  8:25  
Yeah, so my I always grew up playing sport and I was always involved in sport. And before hit like the Olympic level I was I was already in the gym or coaching clients or working with athletes just not at that Olympic level yet. So for me, it was a really natural progression to really want to experience like how to work with the best and the best, like, besides pro Olympic athletes are like the best in the world, right? And so for myself, just this natural understanding of what it took to be at that high firm level of an athlete like through being an athlete myself, but also working with a lot of people before actually got to that place is understanding what it takes and the teamwork and the camaraderie and I've mentioned this on a different podcast, but sport taught me so much of who I am. And I don't know if you played sport, Christine, but there's so many qualities that you take from sport like leadership and communication and teamwork and resiliency and all these qualities that a high performer has and is equipped with so and then just my natural drive to want to be the best, like how do I work with the best? How do I learn more? For me, I knew at that level, like I'd be pushed to my limit in terms of like my skill set and my knowledge and I'd be working with the best type of therapists and nutritionists and psychologists like I would be surrounded with greatness and it would just help me evolve even more so I think also the curiosity and really having no ego either like just being a sponge and soaking up everything I could to be the best therapist I could be for those athletes. But a big part of it was just who I am like I love sport. It was a big part of growing up for myself. I love watching it Love the competition. I love the highs, the lows. So I knew I was gonna end up there. I just didn't actually anticipate landing it so soon. And I thought, it sounds like I just like, hey, but yeah, it was, I think it was just always on my path naturally going into like therapy and strength conditioning. So,

Christine Li  10:18  
gotcha. So I will answer that I am not a natural athlete. I'm love to dance. So I will fit that in whenever I can. But I definitely encourage physical movement to anyone who will listen to me. And I want to follow up my first question with the second question, which was, did you have difficulties with self limiting beliefs when you were in that zone with the Olympic athletes? And could you tell us what they sounded like and how you coped with them? If you did?

Danya Douglas-Hunt  10:49  
Oh, for sure. I did. Yeah, like the imposter syndrome of like, who am I? So I don't know if people can see. But I've had to deal with a lot of like stigma of how young I look or my looks. And highperformance, especially in that area is very male dominated, and very masculine energy. So I definitely had to learn how to adapt, not be fake, but just adapt. Like, I'm stepping into a very high pressure, high intense situation, and I knew I could handle it. Because when you go through school, you work with teams. So sound like you're just like, like dropped out of thin air. Like you're, you're in sport environments. And I knew as an athlete before, like, I understand environment quite well. However, there for sure was a ton of who am I to be doing this? And there was so many times to like, on the pool decks, I worked with swimming Canada, people come up to me and like, okay, like, where's your head therapist, or, you know, who can I speak to about this, and I'm like, you're looking at her. And there's the looks you would get. So I had to work a lot on myself around my confidence and just trust in the work and the training that I did. And I kind of had to allow, like the looks of people coming up to you for the wrong reasons, or just like silly things like that. But they would eat away at me quite a bit until I became aware of Hold on a second. Like, I earned this job, I fought for this job, I'm qualified. And I had to just keep reminding myself of that, like trusting myself, to show up fully as myself in that environment. And that also perked the interest of like, imposter syndrome and self doubt and limiting beliefs. Because if you allow those to just run loose, it could have completely pivoted my career, like I wouldn't have shown up as competently or I wouldn't have showed up with as much gusto or standing on my own, for very high pressure situations where you have to make quick decisions. And it's like, you're not dealing with like, people's just average careers, like this is someone's career, make it or break it kind of thing. So there was a lot of that I had to deal with and be comfortable with. And like, Yes, I'm a woman. Yes, I love like, I'm 12 Yes, I'm beautiful. But I'm also really smart, and I can help you. And I think the biggest thing with that too, though, is just going into it with no ego, and just being a sponge, and recognizing I was going to get judged, and that was okay. And not taking it to heart, but rather almost like this undertone of like, okay, I'll prove you wrong. You'll see how I helped your athlete, you'll see how I work with your team. It's kind of the undertone that I started getting a chip on my shoulder like, Yep, no problem, Judge me all you want, like, I will prove you wrong. It had to take me challenging those thoughts. And don't give you like, there were days where I was crying and like doubting myself, like, can I really do this, but just the self talk of reinforcing what I wanted to see and where I was going. And as what I was called, with my clients, I don't want to swear, but like an evidence list of like, why am I good enough? Or what are my qualifications? Or what is my evidence to prove this new thought? I'm trying to reinforce myself. So I look at my qualifications or working with certain athletes to help me reinforce and feed my mind for where I was going instead of letting the limiting beliefs take over? Because they will if you let them?

Christine Li  13:56  
Yes. And I would imagine working with the highest performers, would be incredibly intense, mindset wise and belief wise, could you share what some of your top pieces of advice to the athletes were? What you've found yourself having to say, in a almost repetitive way, because different athletes were facing the same troubles?

Danya Douglas-Hunt  14:21  
Yeah. So athletes at that level, they're playing at the top of their game, like they are looking for like that point 1/10 of a millisecond. Like you look at swimming, how many metals are like within hundreds of a second, right? So in my relationship with them was really unique because I was dealing with them, they're injured. So I was doing the strength conditioning, and when they're injured, that's like the most vulnerable time for an athlete because their mind is like, am I going to get back into this? Can I trust my knee to handle what I just went through? After blowing up my ACL? It was really about reminding them as well of the belief in themselves and they're going to get back to it and trusting yourself. Just trust the process. injuries are not fun, they're painful. But the actual injury and rehab itself is quite easy. Like follow the plan, you trust someone, something, give you a plan, go through with it, we'll tweak it, we'll pivot it, we'll make sure we're like matching every other piece just besides the injury as well. And so, really helping build that rapport with that athlete to help trust you that we got the plan. And then the other biggest side of it, Christine was managing the mind around it, like trust themselves to get back into the field back into the pool, after coming back from injury, trusting that they're going to recover in time, or we're going to do everything we can to help you get back in time for that Olympic qualifier fire. So it was always just helping them manage their mind, again, directing where do they want? Where can we place our attention? What are we working towards what is going well, and really focusing on helping install that self belief in themselves, they have a massive amount of self belief. I think with anything you've probably experienced yourself to when someone else believes in you, too, it almost gives you like this like extra like Gump or on with that word. But when you have your coach backing you saying yes, I believe in you got this, you can do this, that goes such a long way in anything and especially in those high pressure situations, or when you're coming back from injury, having other people and environments around you to help feed you to where you're going. Have you got this, like the self belief? That was a huge component of it.

Christine Li  16:19  
Okay, what is your thought about self belief being something that we have to return to? That's where my mind is going now that it sometimes feels so unnatural? To say, I've got this, let's let it flow, we're letting it ride that thing. What are your thoughts about that?

Danya Douglas-Hunt  16:38  
Oh, and I think, especially with your background, too, like feel free to cut me off, because you probably know a lot more than this. But our brains internationally wired for threats, right, like our brains are naturally wired to have a negative bias and look for the threats and look for what's wrong all the time. And our brains don't like change, and our brains don't like growth, they're not wired for that. And so we need to start to understand a little bit about how the brain works, you recognize the importance of actually like, oh, okay, knowing that it's actually looking for that all the time, not because you're a bad person, not because you're not good enough, not because you can't do none of that. It's just looking to help you survive and looking out for threats. And if something comes up, that's going to remind you of something you experienced, when you're younger, that was really painful, it's gonna do everything it can to avoid that. Or if it's sensing, like, oh, I don't know what's up ahead, that could be dangerous, I can't predict that it's going to try and self sabotage you not because you're not good enough. So the feeding of self belief, the feeding and reminding yourself to counteract that negative bias, et cetera, going on in the brain is so important, like a daily thing to remind yourself of who you aren't where you're going. Because there's like, what I call them, the invisible dragons. They're not there, because they don't like you. They're just trying to keep you comfortable and safe and to what you know, but any hype from an entrepreneur, any high performing athlete, you are pushing yourselves to next levels of growth all the time, having different conversations, putting yourself in situations that you might not know if you can handle or not. And if you don't get your mind on board by feeding it that self belief of like, where are you going? What can you control, right? The negative bias of the brain that looking for threats will naturally just take over. So it's a huge component of it.

Christine Li  18:18  
I don't have to interrupt you, that's perfect. And a perfect explanation really, of why self belief really needs to be maintained. Yeah, on a daily basis, very consciously. And a part of us is in flow, I think naturally and very beautifully and magically, but we really have to support it, because there are so many different stress threats. Yeah, in daily life, and even from our brains functioning through that we really need to kind of make sure we're constantly in touch with that piece of self belief in a positive way.

Danya Douglas-Hunt  18:53  
Yeah. And I think for me, too, like, I get angry, actually, I would say passionate about teaching this stuff, because I don't know about you, but we're not taught really about the mind at all. And when I learned that the brain is more wired for like it would rather be in pain and comfortable and know what it's dealing with, then growing and uncomfortable. You then realize, like every goal you have is different. And change in difference to the brain is a threat. Again, not because it's nothing to do to you, but just change the brain can predict it. But then also recognizing that everything you want is outside of your comfort zone. So it's going to be this natural indication of like, oh, I should expect these invisible dragons or expect the negative chatter coming up because my brain can't sense what's going to happen. And it's just trying to keep me safe and comfortable. It's wild, though, like Okay, so my brain is not wired for happiness and growth. It's wired for safety and survival. When we look back in the filter of everything we've gone through in our life, it makes sense of oh, this is why I thought that our may have done that. Again, it's nothing to do with you, but rather, how your brain is wired to just try and keep you safe all the time. And constantly we can know like how This, this isn't safe or this isn't like comfortable, we can consciously know that. But subconsciously, our brains might not understand that. And they might just see it as you've done this thing the same way all the time. So it means you must need this to survive. So we're going to keep you doing the same thing over and over again, not knowing that the growth on the other side of whatever that decision might be is actually the best thing for you. If you don't know how to manage that mind, it really can stop people from making an Olympic qualifying team, or going out there getting you a new job or signing a new client or pivoting your career. And it all there's, for me, that's why I love it all starts and ends in the mind.

Christine Li  20:36  
Yes. All right. Thank you for that explanation. Now, let's talk about that point for you of deciding to pivot. And what you felt maybe, was the gift of being able to leave the first part of your career and go into your Danger Zone, perhaps the part that wasn't familiar to you and was brand new?

Danya Douglas-Hunt  21:04  
Yeah. It's, gosh, that year was really hard for me, I'm not gonna lie, I didn't know enough about the mind of understanding kind of why the self talk would come up or why the imposter would come up. And even when you know these things, it doesn't mean they go away, like you start to let your body and brain like process change, right. So there was a lot though coming up around imposter syndrome, especially the self doubt of like, in my mind, genuinely what came up was I'm throwing everything I just worked for. I've spent the last two and a half years building online business, I spent my degree all the money, the time the accolades, The Who am I, are we doing this? Like, am I crazy, but there was something deep inside me. And I like intuition wise was like, this is where you got to go, this is actually going to be the best thing for you. So really helped me have a better understanding of our relationship with myself, and really trusting myself and not the voices or not other people's opinions, but really trusting myself. And so I would say the gift of that was tapping into the relationship with me. And that might be like, weird to people. But when you really, truly understand your intuition, or what's on your heart, or whatever you want to call it, and listen to that, regardless of it makes no logical sense to anyone else out there. It has always worked out better for me than I ever could have anticipated. Had I let my fears or people's opinions and everything else around me, I don't even know like this last two years, two and a half years would have happened. And that scares me. I'm like, these have been the best hardest, but the best years of my life, that wouldn't have happened had I not listened to myself, and like taking that risk and taking those steps. So that would be the biggest gift is my relationship with me.

Christine Li  22:46  
That's beautiful. You use the word intuition. A number of times for you, where do you feel it? How do you conceive of it? And how do you know when to trust it? And what's happening?

Danya Douglas-Hunt  23:00  
Yeah, I definitely. I'm definitely very intuitive. And I like feel energy, which can, again, seem weird to people. But like, industry, when you walk in a room, you just feel a vibe of like, oh, something's going on. Like, it's kind of like that kind of thing. For me, though. I don't know. Are you like, Have you heard of human designing internet at all? I have heard of it. Okay, I'm newer to it. But I'm also like, learning, it's all just learning about yourself. You can take things with a grain of salt and or, as one of my mentors says, Eat the fruit, spit out the seeds, take what works for you and leave what doesn't. But so in human design, I'm what's considered a manifesting generator, lots of ideas, lots of things on the go. And when I learned that about myself, like multi passionate, I looked back and I was like, Oh, why there was so much resistance for me to stick to one thing, because I'm not designed to do that way. And it really hit home. For me, this is why I have multiple ventures like that actually, is what works best for me. I'm high energy. And through that, though, like you can learn a little bit about how you respond to things when you're in frustration states. And again, you just apply it on as like, does this align with me or does not? And it truly is. So for me, it's my intuition. I just have like an inner knowing, like, I just know what to do moving forward. And what works well for me is I asked myself questions. So if there's anyone who isn't human design or manifesting generator, you have to give yourself something to respond to. And I get this instant, like, Heck, yes, or heck, no, I just, and I just have to trust that. And it wasn't something I knew in the beginning, but rather like when I was quiet, when I took the time to just connect with myself, get off the social media, like get off the conversations and movies and just sit still. And you give yourself that space in your brain to just process and be still. I would just sit and have like, Oh, I know where I need to go or I know what I need to do. But I find that most people don't give themselves enough time just to be quiet and still and actually see what's on their heart. And typically when this can happen is like when you're in the shower or You know, when you're going to bed at night, what are the thoughts going on in your head that you're ignoring during the day, but you're not, and you're not giving yourself a chance to actually listen to. And so whether people call that intuition or not, for me, it's like an internal feeling like I feel in my heart in my kind of stomach area. And I can ask myself questions to help me get more clarity of, yep, I'm doing that or no, I'm not. And even though it can make no logical sense from my mind, and there's people like, what are you doing, you're moving, you're doing this, like, Yep, I just have, I've learned to build that muscle and trust myself to listen to even louder, and give myself the time in the day to just be quiet. And listen, that's kind of how I talk about I suppose.

Christine Li  25:37  
Okay, love it. And it seems to be truly you. Absolutely. I love how you relate in your high energy part of your person, and how that makes sense for how you like to do things. I think that makes a lot of sense. I don't know much about human design. But that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So we were talking before we press record about the connection between mind and body and how that is more recently getting more airtime. But yeah, how? Maybe your experiences your experience with sport, your experience as a coach, what you bring to that conversation, how do you see what the average person is just maybe ignoring or not seeing in the connection between the mind and the body?

Danya Douglas-Hunt  26:26  
Yeah, you're, this could be like a 10 hour conversation. But to keep it short, like your body's always communicating with you all the time. Like you think about it, you get hungry, what do you notice, like your body, you may be feeling some grumbling, or like you're tired, and you're, you know, your body's like, oh, maybe we need to rest, or like injury space where I was before. Everyone before they get injured, unless it's a freak accident, everyone knows, like, Oh, I've got a wiggle in my knee, but then we ignore it. And then we go becomes more and more and more and more. So the body and mind are always connecting and communicating to each other. And it kind of gives us two fold of do you actually give yourself a chance to listen to what your body's trying to tell you and communicate to you. And you listen when it's a whisper versus when it becomes a loud scream of like, now it's a full on injury versus, you know, or a full on panic attack with our emotions to like, our emotions, and our triggers of what makes us angry upset, are actually the best indicators. Like they're beautiful mirrors for you to be like, Oh, why am I feeling this way? Or why am I choosing to feel angry or having xiety? Like, what is my body physiology trying to tell me either where my subconscious attention might be a thought, a limiting belief, a fear coming up that I'm ignoring, but I'm just letting my body run on anxiety and fight or flight all the time? Or what do I need maybe to heal or look into within myself. So the mind and body connection is endless. And it's incredible to really tap into it, if you give yourself a chance to listen to the mind, but also listen to the body because they're always trying to communicate to you something. But most of us don't take the time to actually listen to it right or we listen to and we just ignore it and then eventually, potentially becomes like a sickness or injury that we aren't listening to. So in terms of that side of things with coaching, a big part of what I do, and I love to hear your thoughts on this too. But like, emotions, and triggers for people are really uncomfortable. And really, people don't tend to like to feel their emotions. But I'm actually like, Oh, this is a really good sign. Like when we feel uncomfortable. When we feel the fear when we feel the anxiety. It's like, almost like I describe it. As you know, when you're driving your car, and you have the Gaslight pop up. It's just an indicator, there's an indicator, and there's something that you need to pay attention to. Right, put gas in your car, okay, if you don't do that, what's going to happen, your car's gonna run out of gas. So same thing with our physical symptoms in our body or same thing with our emotions in our in our thoughts. They're indicators of where our attention is, or what kind of needs some work or healing or releasing in order to move forward. So we could go down so many rabbit holes here. Is that answer in a way? Or do you want to go deeper on one of those areas?

Christine Li  29:07  
I think you gave lots of different educational pieces in there. And I love that things that we might pass off as irritations, irritating things about our body or pain are actually messages that are so wonderful and beautiful and important to pay attention to. So thank you for that. Let's see. Could we talk now about your love for entrepreneurs and kind of what made you realize that was it for you? And what is new about working with entrepreneurs? What is different about this grip?

Danya Douglas-Hunt  29:51  
Yes. So being an entrepreneur myself, I really think this kind of goes back to like, I just know what it's like to be an entrepreneur. You're in the game, you're playing the same game, you're speaking the same language. And so that was a natural gravitation for myself. And then the pull to work entrepreneurs to is I kept seeing time and time again, very ambitious, very smart, very purpose driven entrepreneurs, who have massive hearts and want to do big things and create impact in the world stop themselves. And I'm like, What is this, like? What's happening? Why hold on you just because your thoughts, you're not going to just go through and help people. So it became this natural thing of, man, if I can really help the person behind the business show up as their most powerful sales job in, get out of the way, their own way, essentially, like, in short, I really help people just get out of their head. Like, in simplest terms, that's what I do. But when I know I can help that person get out of their own way, the ripple effect, it creates not only in their own lives of their income and their families, but the ripple effect that creates on their clients lives, because now they're stepping in, and they're helping serve in that powerful way. And they have the support, and then the world. It sounds really corny, but that's what lights me up. It's like, it's not just me helping one person that one person is shifting and changing, and it's helping their family and then the causes that they're so keen to help people with, right. But if they don't get out of their own way, then the people who need their help, don't get that help. And it's like, that upsets me and like, Oh, if I could just you know, so that's where the passion comes from, in terms of working entrepreneurs, because I truly feel like entrepreneurs are the change makers of the world, like, you guys, were a different breed, to take the risk to grow your own business to put yourself out there, it's not an easy game, like you get a lot of flack coming at you all the time. And when I can help equip that entrepreneur with better tools, or better, just getting their own way. That's what helps change the world, like people with good causes, and making lots of money to help support different causes, right. So that's where that natural transition came from. And truthfully, that was me. I was getting in my own way. And James, coach, Matt have my own way. And then I kept doing that for more people. And I'm like, Oh, this is what I want to help people do as well. Because had I not had James coach me out of my own way I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing, I wouldn't have had opportunities. So that's like, scares me to think about but also like, that's what I help other people with. And then in terms of like, athletes, entrepreneurs, I mean, that's what you mentioned, right? Like the qualities of the entrepreneur and athlete, they're very similar, high performing, committed, you're in it for the long game. And obviously, with athletes, you're getting physical injuries and bruises and stuff. Well, in entrepreneurship, you're taking a lot of beatings from like public or judgment or other people like dealing with same things, but also different, like commitment, and getting up when you fail, right getting back on the horse. It's all the same thing, just in a slightly different arena, right? So when I transitioned from working with high performing athletes to high protein entrepreneurs, it actually wasn't that different at all, we're just speaking to a different game. But all the characteristics and ingredients are very, very similar of both of those industries.

Christine Li  33:02  
I love it. I'm so happy to be connected with you, myself. And so glad we're in the same circles and doing the same thing. And I agree with you entrepreneurship really is about newness and creation, and risk taking and falling down and getting back up 100 times in a short amount of time and building a lot of muscles. So I think you have found yourself in the right place. I'm so grateful that that has happened, because it's connected us to you. And just one last question. And that would be for our audience, what one favorite tip do you have for countering the part of you that wants to get in your own way?

Danya Douglas-Hunt  33:46  
All right, beautiful. So the biggest, easiest tool you have is awareness. And what I would really recommend is whether you take time attention out of your day, like the same time every day, or you set a sticky note or you set an alarm on your phone to just start asking and paying attention to where's your attention? Where are your thoughts at what is the constant dialogue going on, on repeat inside? Because whatever you're thinking and saying you're literally programming your brain to do and take on. And most of us don't realize how disempowering or negative that self talk is. or limiting it is. And so the easiest and biggest tools just to have awareness of that, can you make time in your day to start understanding what am I saying to myself? What are the thoughts coming up? And then obviously, if we have negative thoughts coming up, which we will and limiting beliefs, which we will to just sit there and challenge them, like shine a light on them and ask myself like, Okay, let's take take a bar syndrome, for example, who might be doing this? Who might not to be doing this? Like trying to frame it or flip it or diving into that fear of what am I afraid of? What am I really afraid of? So if I have a fear of imposter syndrome, what am I really afraid of? of being judged? Okay, why am I afraid of that and like kind of shining a light on it? To go to the worst case scenario that your brain is trying to make up, our brains always look for threats. And they're always trying to make the worst case scenarios of everything. And very rarely does a worst case scenario actually happen. But we don't know that. And so the first step to even creating that shining a light on that dragon is just first getting awareness of what's going on in your head all the time, write it down, and then start to challenge those thoughts that do come up and ask yourself what's like, Okay, what's the worst case scenario? What am I really afraid of? And you'll start to see and shift like, Oh, does that has it ever happened before? Nope. Like, for example, Christine, with entrepreneurship, fear, failure, right? That usually links to like being homeless, like you keep going down the rabbit hole, and it's like, you're scared, you're gonna lose your house and be homeless. And then you ask yourself, Okay, well, that really happened? No, I've got friends and support. And you know, I can always ask for help. And like, I always figured it out. Here's all my evidence for it. But until we actually shine a light on the awareness that we have, and really see it for what it is, we can't start shifting or reframing it first starts with awareness. So that's my biggest tip.

Christine Li  36:02  
I love it. You also mentioned making time for success, which is the name of this podcast. And so we're always taught to put our time outside of ourselves elsewhere. And really some of the most important time we can spend is the time we have with ourselves with reflection, checking in with the intuition and the gut, seeing what the feelings are telling us. And yep, designing what we want next.

Danya Douglas-Hunt  36:26  
Totally. Yep, and every high performer in any area, values and understands the importance of rest or making time for that whitespace. Because that actually is the work. But most of us don't give ourselves a chance to actually do it. But if you want to be the next level, or reach, whatever, wherever you're at right now, whatever your goal is, recognizing that that's just as important as the actual work itself, if not more, and for Olympic athletes. I know running here, but like they take the rest and recovery almost more importantly than their training, because it helps them train even harder and with better quality. Same thing goes for you as entrepreneurships or whatever goal you're working towards.

Christine Li  37:02  
I knew I was gonna get a secret out of you. I got the magic secret. Lets everyone take a deep breath. Take some rest. Thank you, Coach Danya. You are amazing. I loved everything you said on this episode today. Thank you for sharing your gifts with us.

Danya Douglas-Hunt  37:17  
Thank you for having me. So fantastic with you so much. I love your dog. Like okay, your dogs in the background. Thank

Christine Li  37:21  
you. She's a good girl. Could you please let us know how our listeners can stay in touch with you begin to work with you if they would like.

Danya Douglas-Hunt  37:29  
Yeah, easiest and most accurate place I am is on Instagram. So @CoachDanya you'll see any links or anything there but I post lots of fun, silly goofy educational reels. But yeah, @CoachDanta, Instagram is the easiest place to find me.

Christine Li  37:42  
Thank you so much. All right. We're gonna leave you here. But I want you to take what Coach Danya has suggested, integrated into your practice, and stay in touch with her stay in touch with me. I'll see you next week with a new episode of Make Time for Success. Thanks for being here. Take care. Thank you. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. I'll talk to you soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai